19 replies to this topic

[Mattias]

I was wondering how many of you out there truly believe in the concept of Justice.
First of all, for clarification: what is practiced today in the courts is not considered to be justice.

-Exceptions for the rich
-Exceptions due to public sympathy
-Exceptions due lack of capital punishment.

For example: I live in Hong Kong. Generally, drunk drivers (if they wind up killing someone) usually get about somewhere between 5 months- 2 years in jail. That's even if they kill someone. On top of that, many of offenders are allowed to drive again after a suspension period.

When it comes down to it, Justice is basically an eye for an eye, no?
It's about doing the exact fair thing so that there is balance.

If you kill someone, you should get capital punishment.
If you steal, you return the stolen amount and get thrown in jail.

If for some reason you cannot be fined, or if your society doesn't permit capital punishment, you should serve a fixed amount of time.
For example.
-1 person killed:40 years
-2 persons killed: 60 years
-3 persons killed: 80 years

and so on.

So in conclusion...
Who of you actually believe in and could carry out the 'eye for an eye' way of dealing with things.

(I'm asking because I'm sure there are many of you who are considering going into law)

Edited by matayo41, Jun 10, 2009 - 05:12.

[gluodin]

I myself, being from korea, agree that laws in many asian country are not strict enough.

I seriously think punishment should be like 'two eyes for an eye'. Since the law breaker is initiating the action that the victim didn't want at all.

Eye for an eye sounds like fair trade but it's not.

Imagine if you have a game cd and some guy wants it for a reasonable price. You don't want to trade it at all, but the guy took it anyway, giving you the money that he promised. Would you say that's fair??

I realize that this isn't a good example for this, but you get the idea of what I mean by two eyes for an eye.

[Tilia]

We've been doing political philosophy as an option in philosophy HL, so I'm used to these discussions by now
I don't really like the "eye for an eye" thing, as it involves death penalty. Do you see the main function of punishment to deter? Don't you think that some people commit crimes because they are poor/mentally ill/provocated etc etc and thereby not as responsible?

In my country, I think people are mostly equal before the law, there was one case involving rascism, but it got a lot of attention and hopefully it was an isolated case. The system is not perfect, but it works adequately.

[Sandwich]

I believe in a concept of justice, but nothing so simple as an eye for an eye. What is done to you should not be done back to others, otherwise civilised society would break down. Justice needs to be a code of correct conduct, not just a system of revenge. If I could steal something and you could get justice by stealing one of my things back, it'd be ridiculous.

There needs to be a penal system but it should be fair, above the law, and different to the original crime. Otherwise what you're getting is a crime for a crime, like an eye for an eye. If the penalty for murder is murder, and the penalty for carjacking is to have your car taken away, it fails to generate respect for the wisdom of authority. It becomes a power system. The ultimate authority in such a justice system is the one which is most powerful. Justice is more than a breast-for-tat mafia, at least within our own democratic societies. Justice and society go hand in hand.

[Mattias]

Sandwich, on Jun 10, 2009 - 18:50, said:

I believe in a concept of justice, but nothing so simple as an eye for an eye. What is done to you should not be done back to others, otherwise civilised society would break down. Justice needs to be a code of correct conduct, not just a system of revenge. If I could steal something and you could get justice by stealing one of my things back, it'd be ridiculous.

There needs to be a penal system but it should be fair, above the law, and different to the original crime. Otherwise what you're getting is a crime for a crime, like an eye for an eye. If the penalty for murder is murder, and the penalty for carjacking is to have your car taken away, it fails to generate respect for the wisdom of authority. It becomes a power system. The ultimate authority in such a justice system is the one which is most powerful. Justice is more than a breast-for-tat mafia, at least within our own democratic societies. Justice and society go hand in hand.

But who is to make this justice system which is supposed to generate respect for the wisdom of authority?
Us?

(Just curious. Interesting views)

Tilia, on Jun 10, 2009 - 16:44, said:

We've been doing political philosophy as an option in philosophy HL, so I'm used to these discussions by now
I don't really like the "eye for an eye" thing, as it involves death penalty. Do you see the main function of punishment to deter? Don't you think that some people commit crimes because they are poor/mentally ill/provocated etc etc and thereby not as responsible?

In my country, I think people are mostly equal before the law, there was one case involving rascism, but it got a lot of attention and hopefully it was an isolated case. The system is not perfect, but it works adequately.

True, I agree many of this people are not really to blame, as some criminals are simply needy.

However, isn't the deliverance of justice supposed to do more than just what is fair?
It's supposed to be a deterrent (as you said)
Even if a poor man stole, he should still be sent to jail, because this would just serve as a stronger warning to other people who may have been considering committing a crime.

And what do you feel about people who commit first degree murder?
Do you think the "eye for an eye" type justice shouldn't be applied to them?

Edited by Aboo, Jun 11, 2009 - 05:47.
Please don't double post. Edit your first post to add additional content.

[Sandwich]

matayo41, on Jun 11, 2009 - 05:31, said:

But who is to make this justice system which is supposed to generate respect for the wisdom of authority?
Us?

(Just curious. Interesting views)

That's much the point of justice always being integrally linked with society. Any justice system must be ratified by society for two main reasons. Firstly that any justice dealt out must be carried out (by a third neutral adjudicating party e.g. the prison service), which it can't be without society to support it. Secondly that what is 'just' is at its most simple what we can all commonly agree is just. Very rarely does society run into major issues on which there can't be some agreement as to the fact that
1. it's wrong
2. there should be a fixed penalty of roughly X.

The only thing which people think can override justice as set down by the state (i.e. us as a society and our representatives in some sort of democratic agreement) would be 'causes'. For instance, trespassing is wrong, unless you're an animal rights activist demonstrating outside an experimental facility. Or, in more disturbingly extreme cases (such as in the USA recently), killing people is wrong, unless they're a doctor helping women have abortions at a clinic.

These are all extreme views provoking 'extreme action' --attempting to justify a deviation from justice, oxymoronic as that is. Anyway, my main point in that was that the only times at which our justice system breaks down is where individuals have strong views outside the common mainstream of ideas (which are the ideas from which we built our justice systems). That is the only time at which the justice system is overridden in a rational way by otherwise law-abiding people (as opposed to psychopaths murdering people, or robbers stealing from people etc.), and what's interesting is that although we may agree with their motives for breaking the law, we do not approve of such people. We don't approve for the simple reason that they have broken the compromise which is a system of justice. Justice is more or less a compromise on every major view held by society to reflect the mainstream and offend a minimum of people with very unusual views. If it didn't have our respect for this compromise, we'd be a collection of individuals again. There'd be no society, because it would be each to their own and each for their own.

[Tilia]

Mattias, on Jun 11, 2009 - 05:31, said:

Tilia, on Jun 10, 2009 - 16:44, said:

We've been doing political philosophy as an option in philosophy HL, so I'm used to these discussions by now
I don't really like the "eye for an eye" thing, as it involves death penalty. Do you see the main function of punishment to deter? Don't you think that some people commit crimes because they are poor/mentally ill/provocated etc etc and thereby not as responsible?

In my country, I think people are mostly equal before the law, there was one case involving rascism, but it got a lot of attention and hopefully it was an isolated case. The system is not perfect, but it works adequately.

True, I agree many of this people are not really to blame, as some criminals are simply needy.

However, isn't the deliverance of justice supposed to do more than just what is fair?
It's supposed to be a deterrent (as you said)
Even if a poor man stole, he should still be sent to jail, because this would just serve as a stronger warning to other people who may have been considering committing a crime.

And what do you feel about people who commit first degree murder?
Do you think the "eye for an eye" type justice shouldn't be applied to them?

But does the deterrance really work? America and other countries with death penalties doesn't have a lower crime frequency than other countries, as far as I've heard. Of course they should get serious punishments, at least in order to protect society from them, if they might kill again.

As Alice said, the "eye for an eye" thing gets quite ridicolous, so I'm not in favour of it, no. Certainly the poor thief should get some kind of punishment, but not as severe as if he had stolen without "needing" it. I know we get the problem of what need is here, but if his wife was dying and needed medicine, I would understand if he robbed a chemist's store to get that medicine.

[sweetroll]

I actually dont believe that there is real justice in any part of the world if you ask why? here is my answer:
as Mattias said 'When it comes down to it, Justice is basically an eye for an eye, no?
It's about doing the exact fair thing so that there is balance' I think its totally a right thought, it should be like that but how accurate people can apply it? I mean, you killed a person and you're also decided to be executed but how can we be sure that the unexistence of the murdered people to his/her family can be measured by the death of another person? the punishment cant bring the dead person back it can only make his/her family's or friends' anger cool down right?

I donno if I made myself clear but in short I dont trust the justice that people are trying to secure I only trust the justice of God

[C.James]

I find justice an awkward word to define and therefore can't respond directly to the question.

If justice is "doing whats right" then yes I believe we can do that.

If justice is "an eye for an eye" no I don't agree as many before me have explained.

My opinion is that laws should work for the best interest of all people so some grey has to be involved in justice.

[wombat123]

Knowing what the "just" decision is in different scenarios is so hard to decide. In Canada there is a big debate over whether or not it it better to use punishment as a deterrent for crime, the "eye for an eye" theory - or to be softer on criminals and try to rehabilitate them instead. Would trying to ease them back into society in a mindset less likely to reoffend not prevent more crime in the long term, and therefore be exacting even more justice than the traditional means of retribution?

[Access Denied]

i dont believe in capital punishment, as wouldn't it be better to rot in jail and have to deal with yourself doing nothing in bad conditions, as opposed to death as an easy option so to speak.

[winter]

I'm all about restorative justice and rehabilitation, as well as crime prevention. Not an eye for an eye.
Locking someone up for stealing to feed themselves is ridiculous - that should have been caught far earlier, and food provided.
Killing someone for killing another person is equally ridiculous. I don't mind the idea of removing people from society for protection, but I believe it needs to be done with care. People involved in violent crime, if they can't be rehabilitated, should probably be removed from general society; however it was not long ago we removed the mentally ill from society for similar reasons.

[DaaeDore]

This is difficult, since a justice system by humans will never be satisfactory for everyone.  Firstly, we all have biases and pitfalls that don't let us see the world the same way that other people do.  Second, do humans really have the right to judge what others deserve and what their suffering is worth?  I don't think so.  If a person loses an eye or a tooth, no other person can say whether that justifies somebody else's loss of an eye or tooth because they would have to consider all of the circumstances of both parties, which is practically impossible for a third party.  So I suppose my answer to the question, in short, is no.

[Proletariat]

Speaking personally and philosophically, I don't believe in Justice as it is most commonly defined. I believe in Justice when it is used synonymously with the idea of innate human Ethics, but I don't believe in Justice when it tries to take the place of morality, and especially not when it attempts to establish itself as an external quantitative measurement.

There is absolutely no such thing as "eye for an eye" in the real world. Perhaps in a 2-dimensional pseudo-storyland where good and evil, right and wrong are the ying and yang of humanity, but let's be real: our species is capable of so many other behavioural ranges than 2. How about manslaughter charges (ie. accidental death)? If an individual's actions results in an unintended death, should they still die? What about mens rea? Would the criminally insane still face an "eye for an eye" punishment? What about our laws against incest for example? Where would your idea of justice come in? If the incest is mutual, would you say that should be legal? Is that even a crime under your "eye for an eye" legal system? What about rape cases? What would be the "eye for an eye" punishment for a rapist? The 'ol prison shower gank? Or castration? At what point would your "eye for an eye" cease being justice and become simple inhumanity?

I apologize for the bombardment of questions, but to suggest that something like Justice can be manifested quantitatively as a perfect equilibrium of the crime is silly. This is why we have Judges. They're not there to provide surly temperament to TV crime shows. They're men and women who have knowledge and experience with law, with the closest grasp to Justice - gained through years of work in the field - that any mortal may approach, and they are there to interpret what is Justice to the individual case.

Of course, that's to say that we accept the concept of Justice at all, and at a certain point in the maturation of a person and their embrace of Individualism, one realizes that Justice is just a word, 7 letters of which 3 are vowels, and the abstraction it's meant to represent is simply that: an abstract.

[Philovitist]

Justice is the ideal of fairness; that a person is not met with good when he does bad. As an idealistic concept, it is not as much something that does or will ever exist as it is a state that is desirable for pursuit. It's an attempt by the secular urgings of man to establish a sort of karmic reciprocity on reality. While justice can be exacted some of the time, it is not something that can be exacted all of the time. Like government, in reality, it is never a system that can be perfected, but one that can be improved and revised so that justice is served as much of the time as possible.

The whole point of law and punishment is not only to deter others from crime. We are told not to murder and are promised a negative consequence if we disobey with the purpose to punish evildoers and reimburse victims as well as deter evil from being done.

It is a goal to both prevent injustice and to correct it.

Laws that fail to do either or both of these things, or only to a certain extent, must be either revised or revoked.

I guess the only question then is "what is injustice?" I derive my answer from J. S. Mill's essay, On Liberty, that injustice is the obstruction of, disregard for, etc., another person's autonomy and freedom of thought/action (as well as his pursuit of happiness, though that part isn't in the essay) without justification, (with the desire for  protection and safety being the only valid justification).

I haven't read much on justice, though...but I believe in the pursuit of the ideal.

I don't like capital punishment, though. It assumes a perfect system of justice by applying such an absolute consequence to a crime.

Prejudice, flawed court proceedings, social pressure, and so much more can all result in an excessively harsh, or even wholly incorrect, sentence that is entirely irrevocable.

[SG6 Warlord]

my background and what i've seen says.
justice is dictated by the biggest crooks and shotters of them all- the government.
of course there is no justice

[Philovitist]

The government isn't corrupt as it is inefficient.

[Proletariat]

Philovitist, on Mar 25, 2011 - 14:08, said:

The government isn't corrupt as it is inefficient.

Yet it fulfills roles that no individual, union, nor corporation could ever begin to achieve.

To pull the convo back on topic though, out of those four entities, only Government has the practical definition of Justice.

[kel766]

Personally, i believe that if a person kills another human being, then that will be enough for a life-sentence in Jail.
      However, I also believe that it is necessary to have a FULL investigation to make sure that the "murderer" isn't by any chance innocent.
               I also believe that therapists to pay visits to jails, and talk to the prisoners, to make sure that if any of the prisoners are truly sorry for what they have done, and they are 100% ready to accept a new peaceful life, that their Jail sentence will be shortened.

[Daedalus]

The eye for an eye system is completely retarded.

Think of its roots: detteral. The idea is that if you know you risk your own life by killing someone, you wouldn't do it ... or that you deserve to forfeit the loss of what you have caused. Entirely barbarian, and senseless.. if it worked in practice that'd be nice, but the criminal thinks of the rewards, not the punishments, and putting people in jail doesn't seem to work out too well in practice (check the statistics). It's like divorce... you'd think each divorce makes a future one more likely, but on the contrary, the more you have divorced the less likely that your future marriages will be successful. You can put drug addicts in jail as many times as you like, and they'll come out and head straight for their dealer. There are root causes involved here.

People steal (including but not limited to, as MUNers would say...) out of greed, hunger (starvation!), need, drug addiction, or lack of opportunities. People kill by accident, because they don't care at all, through negligence, because they have severe psychological disorders, etc. None of these can be cured by biblical punishments. Revenge won't undo a crime and most of the time it doesn't make the victim(s) feel that much better, after it's done - the reality is that our criminal systems need reform to be aimed at the future, at fixing the root causes of crime, at taking apart criminal networks and social groups where crime is accepted and common. You need counseling for people in jail, the chance for people released to get proper jobs with correct supervision, and so on.

I believe in Justice, and I don't believe in your monopoly on defining it. As long as the world is full of people who think the way you do, crime is only going to decrease as fast as economies grow. Can we really not do better than that?